The Row

Therowchurch.com

We took our kids to The Row tonight, also known as a church without walls.  We meet on the corner of Wall and Winston in Skid Row on Friday nights and sing praise songs and listen to Pastor Cue preach/teach and then hand out food to the people living there on the streets.

I’ve never been before and neither has my youngest, Boomerang.  My husband and two older kids have gone before and so Boomerang was super excited to go check it out.  When we got there the kids were understandably nervous and bored and just wanted to go home.  There are people and trash on the streets, cop cars running through there every now and then, and sometimes people yelling and swinging stuff around.  I believe that my kids are safe there but it’s not exactly family friendly.  The atmosphere is dark and scary and loud and things feel unpredictable.

There weren’t as many people there as I thought there would be.  I’ve heard from my oldest, Jelly, that there used to be a lot more people.  More people on the streets and lining up for food and more people serving.  I’m pretty amazed that Pastor Cue is so dedicated showing up every Friday night, rain or shine, for the past 11 years preaching on the corner of Skid Row and serving food afterwards no matter how many people show up.

We have been feeling like our family needs a change in our life, to somehow get “unstuck” with where we are.  We’ve stopped hosting small group at our home and we’ve been thinking about attending The Row as a family for a season.  Tonight was our first night.  I’m not sure how the kids feel about going every Friday night but I think the more we go the less uncomfortable it will be for them (and me).  I feel like there is so much God will teach us and so much we can learn from the people we meet.  Even tonight Jelly pointed out how everyone is so friendly.  And the kids noticed that when the offering bag is passed around there are several homeless people that still give.

We want our kids to see the heart God has for the poor and the vulnerable and for them to be compassionate.  We also want them to see the homeless and treat them as humans and not just people to be scared of or avoided.  Not just for my kids, but for M and I to see these things as well.  I’m hoping to document this season in our family’s life so 1) I can process what I see and feel every Friday night and 2) so we can look back on it and see God’s work in our lives and those on Skid Row.

Prompting

I completely lost it yesterday at church.  It was embarrassing. I was pretty much hyperventilating, I couldn’t control myself.  The sermon was on intercessory prayer and it convicted me of so much.  More than just needing to pray for others it convicted me of so much that is lacking in my own life.  My life of abundance and waste.  I felt so convicted and needing to ask God for forgiveness of my unrepentant, self-serving heart.  I felt overwhelmed as I partook in communion.

I am not a person that prays well.  I’m hardly even a person that prays.  But recently I have been feeling the Spirit prodding me to pray for others.  My life is… going well.  I am not in the battlefield and I certainly have the time and energy to pray for others but it is so inconsistent.  And today I felt God prompting me to do so much more, starting with prayer.  To learn how to pray, to learn to pray well for others, to make space and time for Him and to put my lackadaisical attitude away in so many areas of my life.  I have been given so much and yet I do so little with it.  I am so easily overcome with fear and anxiety that I can hardly take one step into the unknown.  While doing my devotions this morning I was reminded of God’s power and grace even in my imperfections and weaknesses.

Today I am hopeful.  I wonder what tomorrow (and the days to come) will bring.

 

Anticipation

I go to a bible study that feels a little out of my comfort zone and for whatever reason I cannot break out of my shell and initiate or invest in the time spent there with the women. I’m new, I’m shy, I’m young, and I don’t speak up very much. Everyone else there is in love with the meetings and the people and have been going for years if not decades and they all talk about how much they look forward to going. It’s hard for me to get going and pep myself up to go those mornings but I made a commitment and that is what keeps me going right now.  I don’t know why it is such a struggle.  After I leave I’m always very thankful that I went and I feel very blessed by it but every time a new week rolls around it is hard to just get there.

I feel like that is a consistent theme in my life these days. There are so many things that are hard for me to get to, to show up to, to just be there without feeling a little bit of dread beforehand.  But after it is over I’m thankful and often times it’s fun or it’s been a good challenge to stretch me and I’m glad for it for a number of reasons.  But besides Saturdays when our family can sleep in it’s been hard for me to find things that I really look forward to in anticipation.  Is this normal?  Is it just a personality trait of mine?  I wonder, will I find something that I can look forward to and be excited about beforehand and not just after it is over?

Passion or not…

My background and education is in engineering but for a while now my passion was not in what I studied or what I did for work but Christian counseling. I really thought I wanted to pursue some form of counseling. I love one on one interactions more than big crowds and I love listening to people’s stories and to understand where they are coming from. I did a 65 hr DV and SA training so I could start volunteering at a women’s shelter and work their crisis line for families of domestic violence hoping it would give me a taste of what counseling would be like and whether I would really like to pursue it or not.   I had only been volunteering for about a month and it was challenging and stressful but at the end of my shift it felt exhilarating.  I had even thought about eventually taking some online classes from a counseling center to get certified.

And then my small group took one of those spiritual gifts test to help us identify the areas where we were well, spiritually gifted in. And as we worked through the test together as a small group and shared our insights and findings I was shocked to find that counseling was not one of my spiritual gifts. In fact, I don’t even think it was even any where near on my chart of strengths. I was discouraged and disheartened because exhortation was not my gifting and felt like it was telling me this is not what I should be pursuing.  I got mixed responses from friends – some saying this test should not be regarded so seriously and failproof, others saying this is a pretty good indicator of God showing us where our strengths lie and how to make good use of it, and others saying that our spiritual gifts can and often do change over time.

I continued to volunteer off and on for the next two years and then slowly it just died a slow death and I knew that my time there was done and I didn’t want to keep volunteering there anymore.  And throughout that whole time that spiritual gifts booklet was always hanging in the back of my mind.

Whether right or wrong, that test had left a big impression on me and I don’t know what to make of it.  Needless to say, I don’t feel as passionate about pursuing counseling as I once did before.  Maybe that time is over, or maybe after volunteering I realized it wasn’t for me, or maybe it really was just never for me.  The thing is, I don’t know what I feel passionate about nowadays.  Sure every time I listen to a This American Life podcast I feel like I’ve found a new cause to get involved in but that lasts about as long until the next podcast.   As I have been reflecting on this I believe God has been teaching me that I’m not defined by my passions or my failures in it.  He wants me to submit to his heart not the cause.

 

From the outside I am living the American dream. I’ve got a wonderful husband, 3 beautiful kids, a house (and we could even put up a white picket fence), and I get to stay at home and live comfortably. I know I live a spoiled and luxury filled life and really what more could I ask for? Am I acting like a spoiled sheltered millennial (though I am way too old to actually be one) without any hardships if I say I want more? Am I ridiculously ungrateful by feeling lost and purposeless without appreciating all that I have already? Most likely.

But honestly, I’m quite tired of living this shallow life of mine. All these things do not feel fulfilling and do not fill me at the core of my heart but yet that is all I chase after these days. I try so hard to keep up with the Joneses for some instantaneous happiness that is anything but permanent.

I am feeling very introspective today and don’t want to lose this moment because I’m hoping for a shift in my life soon. I’m fairly ordinary and don’t have any awesome accomplishments to brag about but that’s okay. I’m not looking for anything ambitious in this season in life just a shift in what my heart desires. When I take a look at my heart there is no depth there. Instead there are mountains of just stuff… escape mechanisms, materialistic wealth, and vanity (lots of that) that have buried a longing deep down that has very little want of becoming unburied. I don’t want to take the time to dig through all the crap because it’s easier to just keep adding to my pile of shallow pride and selfish wants. I am afraid to go through anything that might require hard work, that might take time, and make me take a hard look at my heart. I just want to be lazy and take the least path of resistance. I don’t have the heart for it. Where do I begin when I don’t have the heart for it but the heart is what I want to change?

Bored

As I sit in the sanctuary of my church home for the past 10+ years my thoughts are distracted and I find myself…. bored.  This wave of guilt washes over me as I realize that I am not only bored sitting and trying to listen to the sermon but I am bored with my faith.  Is that not blasphemy or what?  Or maybe just an honest look into my life.  My spiritual discipline is nonexistent and my love for Jesus is lacking – to say the least.  I’m bored and I want to get out of this boredom without putting in too much work.  How’s that for passion?  I feel duty bound to the things and people that God loves and restrictions instead of freedom from the things of this world.  Every “good deed” seems to feel like a chore.  And I feel it painfully spiraling out of control. I see it in the way I sigh when there is another ministry obligation or meeting to attend.  I see it in the way where I would much rather immerse myself in trashy young adult novels and other mind numbing entertainment because those fictional worlds seem so much more fun and exciting (and I just love teenage angst and romance).  I see it in the way my heart would rather be doing anything than face what I am feeling and the guilt behind it.  I see it as I try so hard to push out any conflicting feelings I may have about my life.  Where I once used to welcome them, I now hate the tears that fall from my eyes… afraid of where they will lead me to.

Thankful

I had to report for jury duty last week and as luck would have it I got selected as a juror for a case that lasted FIVE days long.  I was frustrated, annoyed, and slightly panicky wondering what I would do for childcare for so many days as we have never needed someone to watch the kids after school since I was at home.  For the first day I had my husband take a half day off and watch the kids until I came home, but I knew that I couldn’t ask him to do this for the whole week.

So I leaned on the kindness of friends and neighbors to help me.  And after the long week was over I looked back and was awed and overcome with thankfulness of the help and hospitality of those that came so willingly to help.  For a while I had been complaining and discouraged at the fact that I couldn’t find community after living in this area for over ten years.  I was expecting my community to look a specific way here, the same as how it looked in my childhood when I was growing up in the suburbs of DE.  It was only after this past week that I realized I do have real community here and I was just looking for it in all the wrong places when it had been here all along.  I have failed to see just how much God has blessed me with such loyal and caring friends and neighbors who picked up my kids after school, watched my kids, fed my kids, and gave up their afternoons just to care for them while I was at jury duty.  I reached out for help and these friends did not even hesitate to respond and help me out.  And now I can see just how much I care and depend on their friendships not just for this but for being able to share my life with them over the months and years.  And for that I am so very very thankful.

Impostor Syndrome

– is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. (source: wikipedia)

I was debating whether or not to take on a new mechanical design project recently. I was hemming and hawing over how I didn’t know whether or not I could do it, whether I was even capable of doing it. My husband kept trying to reassure me that I would be fine and finally suggested I look up impostor syndrome as a way to describe how I was feeling. When I read the wikipedia article it hit the nail on the head as to how I felt.

I had actually worked on several other projects before with the same people but as each new one came up I would always feel my stress and anxiety go way up and my feeling of competence go way down. This time was no different except I was able to put a definition to it and it was eye opening to me that this was a common feeling to many people.

More than just feeling incapable is this fear of failing that paralyzes me even before I start. For some reason failure seems to be the biggest hindrance to starting a new project. What if I screw up? If I fail, what will they think of me? If I fail, what will I think of myself? I struggle with not letting success or failure of a project define who I am.

I think when I look back on a project I enjoyed the challenge and developing my skills. I also enjoy (just as much if not more) the mundane projects that don’t require much thought but when finished feels like I accomplished something because it’s checked off of my list of things to do. I am extremely risk averse and hate being out of my comfort zone. At the same time I am feeling like I need to stretch myself a bit and try to be okay with it if I fail or can’t complete something I set out to accomplish. Currently, I can’t even figure out these old physics equations that look so familiar yet are so completely lost on me. And so I read wikipedia and scour the interweb for tutorials to try to make sense of it… but man, am I ever stressed.

Summer days

It is almost the end of summer for my kids and school is starting in just a few days. This means it is also the end of summer for me as well. The first few weeks of summer are always awesome and I’m so glad that school is over but usually as the weeks go on I’m starting to count down the days until school starts again and the kids are back in school.

But this summer has been different. I’m not ready for school to start again, to be up before the sun rises and for schedules and extra-curricular activities to fill up our weekday afternoons and weekends. This summer was filled with just the right amount of fun and busyness and rest and relaxation. We stayed over at grandparents house, played with friends, ran around the city doing different activities, hung out with the cousins, and also stayed at home. Although I thrive on routines and schedules I actually loved not having any place to be at any specific time over the summer (but I did still have our weeks loosely planned out).

The kids are also at an age where I can take them out and it not be super exhausting and draining on me. They are so much more self-sufficient now but they still want to hang out with me and spend time with family. In all honesty, I think I was the last one to wake up almost every day over the summer… it was so great.

I can still remember not so long ago where I worried that the kids would remember their summers with mommy and daddy just always feeling tired and fatigued and not being able to do much but just survive (being a family with young children). Or the time M had to be away the whole summer doing consulting in other cities and not able to spend much time with the family.

I want to remember this summer. This summer where my husband comments on how happy I seem. (A plus for him too as he voices his sentiment, “happy wife, happy life!”) This summer where my kids and I have lots of fun memories but also times of just being bored at home. I’m sad this summer is coming to an end. As I conveniently block out the times in my mind when the kids were bickering and fighting with each other and the times when I was yelling and screaming at them, I will remember this summer with many fond memories.

Old Memory Triggered

I had a best friend in college.  But now we are no longer friends.  It’s been over 10 years now but every now and then something will trigger the memory of it.

We went our separate ways after college.  She moved out of the country and I got married.  We were still friends then.  She got pregnant and had to move back home.  We were still friends then.  She left home and moved to the same state as me.  We were still friends then.  But then she moved directly across the street from me and that is where our problems began.

She didn’t have a car so I helped her move, I drove her to her birthing classes every week which was in another state because she didn’t want to deliver in a hospital but a birthing home, I acted as her partner in the birthing classes because the father was not around, she got a job near where I worked so I drove and dropped her off and picked her up every day for her job, I gave her the keys to my apartment so she could do her laundry and borrow what she needed to borrow.  And yet as we spent so much time together we completely drifted apart.  She sorely missed the country that she had to leave, she missed the baby’s father and always defended him about what a great guy he was and a great father he was and just told me I didn’t understand.  And that was true, I didn’t understand and I was tired of hearing about how awesome he was because frankly, if he’s that awesome, why the hell was I doing everything that he should have been doing?  But most of all I felt unappreciated and completely used.  The baby father and maybe others got the praise and credit.  I never even got a thank you from her.  She started shutting me out and so I did the same (or maybe it was the other way around).  She had the keys to my house but would only come in when I wasn’t home.

Years later I heard that she said that I had deserted her.  In one sense that was very true, I had given up on her long before I stopped helping her.  For some odd reason she kept asking me for help and I kept saying yes, as if out of a want of being needed, yet we were complete strangers after a few short months and it had all fallen apart already.

When I moved to another state it was a great escape.  A breather from that friendship that was so suffocating.  I had never confronted her about all my issues and she didn’t either as I’m sure she had plenty of issues with me. We were too immature and would rather avoid conflict.

It felt damn good being in my self-righteous state because I was extremely hurt and felt justified for the ways I was feeling.  And yet God was saying to me, if I was doing these things from a superior point of view and looking down on her and judging her then it was me that needed to change, not her.  I didn’t understand where she was coming from and after a while I didn’t even try to understand her.  Because it was all about me and what I did for her and how she hurt me.  And again He spoke to me, if I was finding my self-worth in feeling appreciated by her then it was me that needed to change and not her.  It was a bitter pill for me to swallow… but necessary in finding and giving forgiveness.  And closure.